


Guns 'n' Roses

by leupagus, whetherwoman



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: ...sort of, Alternate Universe, Assassins & Hitmen, M/M, Prompt Fic, Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2020-10-27 01:44:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20752286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leupagus/pseuds/leupagus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whetherwoman/pseuds/whetherwoman
Summary: You get an assassin AU! And you get an assassin AU! EVERYBODY GETS AN ASSASSIN AU!Or, more seriously, the various and sundry assassin AUs that whetherwoman and leupagus dream up, with varying levels of angst, gore, film noir nonsense, sneezing, and supersoakers.





	1. Assassin Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt by whetherwoman, who wanted Patrick and David roleplaying assassins

Patrick took the stairs two at a time, weapon in hand. The door was at the far end, on the right; there was no time to listen for sounds of pursuit. He tried the handle.

Of course the door was open. Of course he’d been expected.

“So you’ve found me,” Rose purred, sitting in the darkest corner of the room. Patrick’s grip tightened but he didn’t lift his hand; Rose’s own hands weren’t empty, the glint of the rifle strangely pretty in the moonlight. “I was wondering what had taken you so long.”

“I got held up,” Patrick said, shutting the door, locking it.

Rose tracked his movements and smiled. “And what exactly held you up?” Rose asked, crossing his legs. He wore pair of black pants with a white shirt; simple and clean and probably more expensive than Patrick’s entire wardrobe. “They sent you to take me out; I can’t imagine what would distract Patrick Brewer from his assignment.”

Patrick had nothing to say to that; nothing important, as important as pulling Rose out of that chair to feel how soft his shirt was, as important as David—that was his name, _David_—smiling at down at him and kissing him back, the sounds of the chaos below receding. Patrick let his weapon clatter to the ground in order to grab at David’s waist, his hair, press his mouth against the temptation of David’s throat. This was what mattered, what Patrick had fought through the mobs to get to, at long last.

The muzzle pressed against his stomach, and Patrick had only a moment to see the regret on David’s face. “I’m sorry,” David murmured, and Patrick felt wetness pool against his skin.

Patrick stepped back and rolled his eyes. “You know, I should’ve expected the betrayal?” he said, tugging at his own shirt that now sported a nice green splotch of food-colored water. “But it still hurts.”

“I couldn’t risk _my_ clothes!” David defended, laughing as he set the Super Soaker down on the desk. “Here, give me that, it’ll probably wash out.”

“If it’ll wash out, then why did you shoot _me_—“

“Oh, instead of letting you shoot _me_, I suppose,” David scoffed, still tugging at Patrick’s button-up. Outside, there was a shriek, followed by a cackle that sounded distinctly Ronnie-esque; the annual Squirt Gun Assassins game seemed to be proceeding well.

“I mean, you let me run up two flights of stairs and then _shot me_, your _husband_—“

“And you were _coming in here_ to shoot _me,_ your husband,” David countered, but leaned in for a kiss, smiling almost too wide to make contact.

Patrick finally got his shirt off and handed it over, only to reel David in for another kiss. “I always knew you’d be the death of me,” he muttered, biting at David’s jaw.

“Hmm,” David agreed, “And also, for the record? This is definitely not what most people mean when they talk about watersports.”


	2. The Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based off the prompt from whetherwoman who wanted David as an infamous assassin known as The Ghost, only they've got the wrong guy and he's actually a hapless gallerist. (The Ghost is, obviously, Moira, but I didn't get that far)

Patrick watches the gallery for a few weeks; longer than he would for a mark, but the Ghost isn't a mark, can't be reduced to something so banal. He takes slow ambling walks down the sidewalk, gets coffee from the small shop across the street; once he even poses as a buyer on a day he know the Ghost won't be there, walking through the gallery with his hands jammed into his pockets to stop them from shaking. It's all real, the Ghost is real, and after almost ten years Patrick is here, so close he can taste the copper on his tongue.

He should have known that it wouldn't be so easy—that the Ghost would see him, too.

There's a exhibit being put on (of course the Ghost is meticulous about his cover the way he is about everything else, arranging exhibits, displaying truly hideous artwork in his gallery, meeting with buyers) and Patrick slips in, swirling amongst the crowd. He's out of place in his suit jacket and tie, but he's trained himself to fade out of sight anywhere, and it's remarkably easy to do here, people's gazes sliding over him to find the more interesting person to his left.

Ronnie keeps trying to drill it into his head: _don't get cocky_.

"I was wondering if you'd show up," says a voice behind him, high and warm and a little amused, unfamiliar with a familiar tone. Patrick turns; he can't believe he left a blind spot open, but of course the Ghost would've found it, would've slid into it without any trouble.

The Ghost is David Rose, thirty-four, son of preposterously wealthy parents who do something in entertainment, some college, some drug arrests, some modest successes in his career and some spectacular failures in his personal life. Patrick had skimmed over the biography because it was such a ridiculous cover, something out of the old DnD sessions he and his friends would have with elaborate backstories to make up for whatever reality really was. Standing in front of him, the cover feels like a shield, like armor, like Patrick might be the only one in this whole room—this whole city—that can see the chinks.

David Rose—the Ghost—holds two champagne flutes; they're not the tall thin things Patrick sees in the movies, but beautiful curved pieces of crystal. He offers one, and Patrick wonders how many people this man has killed with a shard of glass in his hand. He takes it.

"What made you wonder that?" he asks, watching David take a sip. David watches him not take a sip, but Patrick's not about to be poisoned in the middle of SoHo on a Thursday night, no matter how much an honor it might be to get the personal attention of the Ghost.

But David just smiles. It's not a smile that reaches his eyes, which is only to be expected; what's odd is the ripple of disappointment he can feel. He's been waiting to kill the Ghost for a third of his life, there's no reason to want his good opinion.

"Mm, I keep track of everyone who comes in," David says, finishing off his champagne. "And you struck me as someone who's looking for something."

"I am," he replies, almost relieved; of course the Ghost saw him, knew what he was. "But I'm not here for them."

"What are you here for, then?" David asks, tilting his head, still smiling that not-smile.

"I'm here for you," Patrick says, and puts the drink on a nearby table. He's got his hand at the button of his jacket, the Sig warm against his side, when the Ghost touches his elbow. Not to hurt or incapacitate, and that’s almost as much a shock as the touch itself.

"Um," David says, and it's such a strange thing to hear, to think that the Ghost could be... what, concerned about his guests? The Ghost once set fire to a c-suite, thirty people burned alive. But Patrick looks at his face and he's looking around, clocking the exits and pulling at Patrick's elbow, leading him through the crowd and up a stairway. The gun in Patrick’s hand feels rude, somehow, more rude than not drinking the champagne.

David pulls him into a room with a door, closes it with care, locking it deliberately, and Patrick had a dozen chances to shoot him in the head or the neck or the back or the stomach on their way up here, has a dozen more chances now, as the Ghost turns back toward him and—

"Oh my God, what the _fuck_?" David yelps, scrabbling at the door with all the grace of a coked-out whippet, his eyes wide and horrified. "Okay, so this isn't some sort of—am I seriously being robbed by a hot twink at my own gallery? This is, oh my god, fine, here's my wallet," and before Patrick can shoot him David's thrust his wallet into his other hand. "This is _unbelievable_."

"I'm not here to rob you," Patrick says, feeling a little insulted.

"Well you're not here to _fuck_ me which is what I thought was going to happen, and also? You have a _gun_," David points out, looking way too annoyed for the situation, which is... what _is_ the situation, exactly?

“I’m here to kill the Ghost," Patrick says.

David blinks, squinting at him. "Aren't—okay, please don't take this the wrong way, person with the gun, but aren't ghosts... dead? Normally?"

Patrick rolls his eyes. "You know what I mean. The Ghost. You."

"I—okay, we just went from meeting each other to me thinking this was some nice anonymous sex situation to me thinking this was a robbery to... oh my god you're going to kill the Ghost, who's _me_, apparently, and can I just—would you mind not? Doing that?"

"Sorry," Patrick says, and finds that it’s kind of true.

"Right," says David, and squeezes his eyes shut. Patrick lifts his gun to David's forehead—

He's too close, easy reaching distance; the Ghost has disarmed people who came at him exactly like this. Broke fingers before shooting his attackers, flipping the gun around still in their hands and squeezing the trigger, lashing out with a foot or a knee, making short work of someone stupid enough to get close enough to smell the cologne he's wearing, see the tear at the corner of his eye, hear the shaky inhale of breath.

Patrick lowers his gun. "Where were you on March 30th, 2006?"

David squints one eye open at him. "I—what?"

"March 30th," Patrick repeats, "2006."

"I don't know!" David's hands flail, knocking against the wall. "Ow. It was after I dropped out of college so probably I was here—I mean, not _here_ here, _New York_ here, getting wasted with people who weren't actively trying to murder me. Which may sound like a low bar but after tonight I'm going to appreciate it a lot more." David hesitates. "Why?"

"No reason," Patrick lies. "So you're—"

"I'm not Ghost, or _the_ Ghost, or whatever," David snaps, looking extremely wronged. It shouldn't be funny, shouldn't be making Patrick smile, but he's smiling anyway and David catches him. "Excuse me, are you _laughing_ at me? Might I remind you that you're the one who’s about to assassinate the wrong guy?"

Explaining that it technically wouldn't have been an assassination would take too long, and Patrick should probably get out of there and regroup—the Ghost lead Patrick here, which means somewhere along the line he got very comprehensively duped, which means Ronnie's going to be _pissed_. But something about David makes him want to... apologize.

Instead, he says, "I'm not laughing at you, David Rose. And don't be too mad; maybe one day someone will assassinate you for your own sake." He reaches out, some part of him still expecting the Ghost to lash out and break his arm, but David Rose just swallows as Patrick moves him away from the door, looking glassy-eyed, which Patrick's never found attractive before. "Sorry about the mix-up, though."

"So that's a no on the anonymous sex, I guess," David says, clapping a hand over his own mouth after the words come out, and Patrick laughs—feels it reach his eyes, reach his whole body.

"Rain check," he says, and kisses David on the cheek. He's bristly with stubble and there's a faint sheen of sweat and he's warm. Patrick slips out and shuts the door behind him, and disappears out into the night before the police sirens get too close.

At a restaurant a few blocks from his safe house, Patrick pulls out David's wallet. It's expensive, kind of ugly, with seven different credit cards, all in his name; his drivers's license has been expired for three months. There's a couple of punch cards for some yoga place, a library card, dozens of business cards from various people who have titles like "Brand Invigorator," and tucked into a small pocket—

Tucked into a small pocket is a picture from one of those photo booth strips, four people in bathing suits mugging for the camera: a man and a woman, the man with eyebrows to rival David's, the woman with expertly coiffed hair and a small smile Patrick recognizes. The little girl is sitting on her father's lap, her tongue sticking out and squinting against the light, her left hand raised in a peace sign. The little boy is about seven, with a riot of curls on his head, laughing at something, looking so happy that Patrick's heart seizes, thumps wildly in his chest.

He puts the picture back, puts the wallet back in his pocket, and takes the long way back home.


	3. death by post-nasal drip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for being sick and using it to request ficlets, leupagus. Stay hydrated.

Patrick skids around the corner, through a puddle, and into the alley, which is—fuck. A dead end. The Rose has disappeared into thin air, again, and all Patrick has to show for the last six months of concerted effort is a couple of blisters, jeans soaked by the rain, and—

A sneeze echoes around the alley.

Patrick looks up.

"Fuck," David Rose mutters, from where he's clinging to the brick wall ten feet above Patrick's head.

"How do you _do_ that," Patrick says involuntarily. The mortar isn't even crumbling, there is no way for anyone to climb that high, let alone cling to literally nothing.

"It's not hard," Rose says sullenly. "No one ever looks up." He sneezes again, sudden and violent. Patrick has to stop himself from jerking forward, sure Rose will lose his precarious hold. 

"Are you—okay?" he asks in spite of himself.

"No, what the fuck," Rose snarls, craning his neck around to look down at Patrick. Patrick just barely stops himself from reaching out, as if he could somehow catch 170 pounds of trained assassin, as if his hands between Rose and the asphalt would make any sort of difference. "You're about to shoot me, of course I'm not okay."

"I'm not going to shoot you," Patrick says. "I don't shoot people. I don't even have a gun on me."

"Okay, first of all that's a lie," Rose says, "I can see the subcompact 9mm Glock in your pocket from here, what do you think it looks like, a phone? A smallish accordion? Oh fuck—" He stops to sneeze again, three times in a row. "And second," he says, before Patrick can even take a breath, "everyone knows Button-Face Brewer kills with knives, so I'm going to get two knives in the kidney and another severing my spine any second now, and honestly I don't know what you're waiting for."

Patrick doesn't know either, actually, except that the Rose knows his name. And his preferred weaponry. And apparently got a close enough look at some point to see what he's got in his pockets, what the hell, even _Butani_ didn't catch that—Patrick wears baggy jeans for a reason—anyway. There's no reason for him to do what he does next, which is to say, "Look, come down and I'll buy you a cup of soup."

"What," Rose says flatly.

"Soup," Patrick says, because he hasn't lived this long by not following his gut. "There's a deli around the corner, actually, they do a great cup of chicken soup. And no offense, but you sound like you need it."

"So you're—switching to poisoning," Rose says, but Patrick seizes on the hesitation on his voice.

"Okay, maybe I'll kill you after soup," he says reassuringly, "but then you'll die after a nice hot cup of soup, instead of in a cold rainy alley."

Rose hesitates more more second, then mutters, "Oh, fuck it," and pushes himself back off the wall. Patrick takes a startled step back, but Rose lands as silently as a cat, the most graceful thing Patrick has ever seen. Then he promptly ruins it by sneezing so hard Patrick actually sees snot fly out of his nose.

"Ew," Patrick says mildly.

"Ugh," Rose grumbles, digging through his pocket for a handkerchief. It's soaked, as is everything either of them are wearing, but he blows his nose anyway and stuffs it back into his pocket. His pants are _not_ baggy, Patrick notices. "This is all your fault anyway, you had my apartment staked out for hours last night, this weather is the worst."

"It was forty-five minutes," Patrick corrects, "and I remember this because I got chewed out, extensively, for not even making it an hour."

"Yes, well," Rose grumbles, but he doesn't duck his head fast enough to hide the pleased curl of his mouth. "I have a delicate constitution."

"Look, let's just—" Patrick says, and holds out his hand. "I'm Patrick."

Rose looks at him, then down at his hand. Then he sighs. "I'm not going to shake your hand."

"Oh," Patrick says, feeling unaccountably hurt. 

"Because I'm _gross_," Rose says, glaring at him. "You've been _watching_ me sneeze for the last _ten minutes_, why would you want to _touch_ me—ugh. I can't believe I've been chased down by a complete idiot."

"Right," Patrick says, trying not to grin. "Soup first, then maybe a handshake."

"You first," Rose says, eyeing him narrowly. 

Patrick raises an eyebrow. "Side by side," he says, and Rose's mouth purses but he nods.

"David," he says grudgingly.

Patrick stops trying to hide his grin. "Nice to meet you, David Rose," he says.


	4. Killing Performance Indicators

"I'm going to kill someone," David said.

"Well, yeah," Patrick said next to him. "That is your job."

"I meant _metaphorically_," David said. He eyed the careful architecture of stale cookies on his tiny paper plate, then added one more chocolate chip to the top. "God, the buzzwords alone—if it's not KPIs and metrics, it's kanban and agile methodology. If they didn't serve cookies at these stupid all-staff meetings I would never come."

"That and they'd kill you," Patrick said. "Literally." He reached for a lemon bar.

"Um," David said. "I wouldn't go for one of those."

"David," Patrick said disapprovingly. "You didn't."

"Of course not," David said unconvincingly. "Although we should probably move away from the table now."

"What really gets me," Patrick said as he casually snagged a peanut butter cookie and led them away from the table, "is the lack of a real baseline. What does a twelve percent improvement in productivity really mean, you know?"

"Mmph!" David nodded emphatically, his mouth full. "Right, exactly, I can knock out a whole city block if that’s what they want. But where’s the QA? Where’s the voice of the customer? If we’re not basing KPIs on customer valuation what are we even doing here?"

"I dunno, David," Patrick said, licking his finger and carefully picking up the crumbs remaining on his plate. "I was thinking of just sandbagging it."

"I know, I know," David sighed. "What a waste of time, though. We could be looking at real improvements instead of making up numbers to fit some VP’s idea of the week."

"I meant," Patrick said, "tying a sandbag to the VP’s feet and dumping him in the river."

A commotion over at the cookie table cut him off. People crowded in, blocking their view. A chair toppled over.

"Looks like that won’t be necessary," David said, looking smug.

"Lemon bars, huh?" Patrick said, fondly. "Guess that’s our cue to leave, then. Come on, I wanted to get your take on these burn down charts."


End file.
